PREHISTORIC SCIENCE

To speak of a prehistoric science may seem like a contradiction of
terms. The word prehistoric seems to imply barbarism, while science,
clearly enough, seems the outgrowth of civilization; but rightly
considered, there is no contradiction. For, on the one hand, man had
ceased to be a barbarian long before the beginning of what we call the
historical period; and, on the other hand, science, of a kind, is no
less a precursor and a cause of civilization than it is a consequent. To
get this clearly in mind, we must ask ourselves: What, then, is science?
The word runs glibly enough upon the tongue of our every-day speech, but
it is not often, perhaps, that they who use it habitually ask themselves
just what it means. Yet the answer is not difficult. A little attention
will show that science, as the word is commonly used, implies these
things: first, the gathering of knowledge through observation; second,
the classification of such knowledge, and through this classification,
the elaboration of general ideas or principles. In the familiar
definition of Herbert Spencer, science is organized knowledge.